Whispers from the Veil

After my rebirth, I was completely done with the hustle.

I stopped taking any new spirit-channeling commissions. I just wanted to sit back and watch the show.

The lesson from my past life was etched into my very soul. I used to be a medium working a small booth at the Ravenwood Night Market. My job was simple. I burned the belongings of the deceased to help them cross over and fulfill their final wishes.

That was until Bella came along. She was an internet influencer who claimed she only needed to touch an object to hear a ghosts final words, and she offered her services completely free of charge.

Her clout-chasing destroyed my business overnight. Grieving families turned on me, accusing me of being a fraud who charged exorbitant fees and ruined precious keepsakes. The public outrage grew so violent that a crazed mob cornered me on the old clocktower balcony, pushing me over the edge to a plummeting death.

Now, the tables have turned. Bella is the one panicking. She clearly forgot one fundamental rule of the occult. A medium does not just attract the living. We attract the restless dead.

"Madam Serena, please! My wife passed away so suddenly. She didn't leave a single word behind. You have to help me see if she had any final wishes."

The man standing before my table looked frantic. He grabbed my hands, his grip painfully tight.

That sharp ache jolted me back to reality. I realized I had truly been reborn. The phantom agony of shattered concrete and broken bones from my past life flared in my mind. I immediately snatched my hands back.

"I am sorry, I..."

Before I could finish my sentence, Bellas sickly-sweet voice cut me off.

"Madam Serena is going to burn your wife's belongings, and she charges three grand for it!"

The mans face flushed with embarrassment. He mumbled that his family was struggling financially and begged for a discount.

"No exceptions," I replied. My tone was entirely detached.

Bella immediately seized the opportunity to play the hero. "Madam Serena, helping the dead find peace is supposed to be a good deed. Charging such an outrageous fee and destroying someones last physical memories is just cruel."

She turned to the crowd with a camera pointed right at her face. "Why don't you make an exception and do this one for free? I would love to see if our readings match up."

My breath hitched. Those were the exact words she used in my previous life. That very stunt sparked the witch hunt against me, leading the internet to brand me a greedy scammer who destroyed family heirlooms. It was the catalyst that ended with me plunging off that tower.

After my death, Bella put on a masterclass in fake tears. She told her audience that my spirit had visited her to confess my sins, claiming my final wish was to donate all my assets to her. She absorbed my life savings, gained millions of followers from the tragedy, and lived a life of absolute luxury.

Before that fatal day, we had clashed a few times. She was always able to recite the deceased's final wishes perfectly, word for word. I used to think my skills were simply inferior. But then I noticed a pattern. She never accepted a gig independently. She only ever swooped in after I took a client.

There was no way her perfect track record was a coincidence.

I let out a soft laugh and threw my hands up in defeat. "A girl has to eat. But since you are so noble and generous, I will pass this client to you."

I smoothly began packing up my crystal pendulum, my sage, and my chalk. I was out of there.

Bellas camera-ready smile completely froze.

In my past life, she provoked me into competing with her. Today, I was tapping out. Let's see how she handles a ghost without my coattails to ride.

"Serena, wait right there!"

She rushed over and blocked my path. "I know your methods are a bit old-school, but we should do this for the sake of the departed. Lets work together to make sure nothing is missed."

I let out an exaggerated yawn. "Sorry, the shop is closed for the day. You are the talented one here. Have fun figuring it out yourself."

Her expression darkened instantly. I looked over at the grieving husband. "You better hurry up and take her offer. She might change her mind and start charging you."

The man frantically grabbed Bella's arm, treating her like his last hope. I just smirked, threw my bag over my shoulder, and headed home for a nap.

Later that evening, I opened her live stream on my phone. Bella was on screen. She gently touched a silver bracelet, closed her eyes tightly, and after a few minutes of dramatic silence, she shook her head sadly.

"The spirit is saying that the only thing she cannot let go of is you and the kids. She wants you to live a good life and stop mourning her."

The man broke down into loud, heaving sobs. The comment section was a waterfall of praise.

"Bella is literally an angel!"

"Way better than that cold-blooded scammer Serena. Three grand for a few words? She should be locked up."

"Protect Bella at all costs!"

A massive donor dropped several premium gifts on the stream. I chuckled to myself. No wonder she offered free services. Those virtual tips easily surpassed my flat three-grand fee.

However, something about Bellas reading felt completely off.

I had read that mans aura at the market. The lines around his eyes and the hollow energy in his life-path clearly indicated he was sterile. He did not have any children.

Was it possible my psychic intuition was wrong?

On the screen, Bella smiled brightly at her viewers. "Guys, if anyone out there needs closure, please come find me. My spirit channeling is always free of charge."

Her viewer count spiked over sixty thousand. She was trending at the number one spot.

Fame is a double-edged sword in the occult world. When you broadcast a beacon into the dark, it is not just living humans who notice.

That is exactly why I capped my work at two clients a day.

Once you invite something from the shadows into your space, getting it to leave is a whole different nightmare.

I sent a text to Arthur, an old friend who studied demonology with me, asking him to run a background check on Bella.

Everything about that girl screamed fraud.

Her online bio stated she had a community college degree in business management. Suddenly, out of nowhere, she possessed the Sight? In our world, you are either born into a bloodline of mediums or you spend decades studying under a master.

If she came from a bloodline, her aura would show it. If she studied the craft, she would have instantly noticed the sterile energy surrounding that grieving husband.

She was a walking contradiction.

I rolled over on my couch, closed the streaming app, and put on a horror movie.

My phone buzzed. It was Gideon, the manager of the Ravenwood market.

"Serena, why did you pack up early? Are you renewing your stall lease for next month?"

I thought about it for a second. "No, I am done. The business is drying up, and I am tired of dealing with internet trolls trying to ruin my reputation. I am retiring."

The line went dead silent for a few seconds. "Fair enough. Take a break, kid."

After hanging up, I scrolled through my newsfeed. Articles and gossip blogs were already pushing Bella as the new saint of the spiritual community.

Every post about me was pure vitriol.

They hated me because my prices were high, and they despised the fact that I strictly limited my readings to two a day. Even when rich clients offered double for emergency sessions, I never bent the rules. They called me heartless.

Meanwhile, little Miss Bella was handing out free therapy.

In her latest clip, she looked directly into the lens. "I am here to serve the community. A true whisperer of the dead would never use their gift to exploit people."

I typed out a quick comment from my burner account. "The living walk the sunlit path. The dead walk the shadow roads. Do not blur the lines."

Bellas fans immediately attacked. "Are you threatening her?"

Bella pinned my comment and replied live. "Spirits are just like us. They have needs. I am simply a bridge to help them communicate. Do not worry about me stealing your customers, Serena."

She obviously figured out it was me.

The chat room exploded with hate. "Look at Serena dying of jealousy!"

"Focus on your own miserable life before you try to preach about shadow roads. You look like a corpse sitting at that flea market booth anyway. Bella is actually pretty and full of life."

I just smiled at the screen. When you spend your life wading through necrotic energy, a bit of the gloom tends to stick to you.

That was the real reason I charged three grand. Half of that money was for my living expenses. The other half was used to buy the rarest incense, salt, and offerings required to bribe the entities below and pacify the souls I summoned.

Some people die with violent, festering grudges. Calming that kind of rage is not a parlor trick.

I had to listen to their agonizing whispers, absorb their sorrow, and perform exhausting rituals just to ensure they did not follow me home to rip my throat out.

These keyboard warriors thought channeling was just passing along a cute voicemail from beyond the grave. If it were that easy, I would be doing ten readings a day.

I closed the app. My phone immediately rang. It was Bella.

"What exactly was that comment supposed to mean? Are you really that desperate for attention?"

I let out a dry, mocking laugh. "You think I want your kind of attention?"

"What else could it be?"

"Let me give you a free piece of advice. Playing with the Veil always comes with a price tag. Keep acting like a tourist in hell, and something is going to drag you under."

"Stop trying to scare me," she scoffed, slamming the phone down.

She leaked the recording of our call on her page. The internet mob came for my throat again, pushing her follower count even higher.

People were crowning Bella the greatest psychic of her generation. Her fans begged her to do live paranormal investigations in abandoned asylums, and she foolishly agreed to all of it.

Her fame skyrocketed. I stayed hidden in my apartment, only leaving to buy groceries and practice my grounding meditations.

A week later, I checked in on her streams. Her business was booming. Unlike me, she never turned a single soul away.

I did not know what kind of parlor tricks she was pulling, but one thing was undeniably real. Through the screen, I could see a sickly, grayish-black tint spreading across her collarbones and under her eyes.

She was infected. Something necrotic had attached itself to her. Yet, she seemed completely oblivious, intoxicated by the fame.

It was morbidly fascinating.

Bella posted an open challenge on her page.

"I invite any traditional mediums, occultists, or demonologists to join me on stream for a friendly showcase of skills."

Nobody from the legitimate underground community took the bait. Genuine practitioners respect the terrifying weight of the unseen world. We don't do parlor tricks for likes.

After a week of being ignored by the professionals, a crisis forced her to seek me out.

The Ravenwood Night Market was in chaos.

Gideon called me in a panic. "Serena, it is a disaster down here. Two of our veteran vendors dropped dead right in their booths. Their families are tearing the place apart."

"Do not you have your internet angel for that?"

"She agreed to come, but only if you are here too. Honestly, I need you here for crowd control. Please."

I paused, sipping my coffee. "People die, Gideon. Call the mortuary. Do not try to play me. Tell me the real problem or I am staying on my couch."

"Dammit, fine. One was the antique dealer, the other sold jade. Both guys were sitting on massive stashes of cash. The antique dealer has a bank vault, and nobody can find the key or the codes. There are millions of dollars on the line."

"The families are demanding a sance right now to find the wealth. If they do not get answers, they are going to burn the market down to the ground."

I finally understood.

In the past, the spirits just wanted to say goodbye to their kids or tell their spouses they loved them. Vague emotional closure. Furthermore, Bella had always swooped in after I did the heavy lifting of burning the anchors and connecting to the Veil. She never had to guess.

Now, there were millions of dollars at stake, specific lockbox codes, and missing keys. She was flying blind, and she was terrified.

I smiled against the rim of my mug. "Tell her to wait. I will be right there."

When I arrived at the market, I immediately raised an eyebrow at Bellas appearance.

It had only been a week, but she looked like a walking skeleton. Heavy layers of foundation could not hide the bruised, purple bags under her eyes.

She lunged at me the second I walked in. "Serena, you have to be careful when you burn their items. We only get one shot at this."

She aggressively shoved a cold jade pendant into my palm. I glanced at it, then shoved it right back against her chest.

"What do you want me to do with this? I came to buy some roasted nuts and watch the drama unfold."

"You are the one claiming you can read a ghosts final thoughts just by touching their stuff. So do it. Spit out the safe codes."

"Hurry up, my favorite show is on in an hour."

Bellas carefully crafted innocent expression fractured.

"Serena, we are supposed to do this together!"

I nodded slowly. "Sure. There are two dead guys. We can take one each. Pick your poison."

I stared dead into her hollow eyes. All the color drained from her face, but the cameras were rolling. She forced her chin up.

"Fine. I will go first. I will take the jade dealer."

She gripped the jade pendant tightly, took a deep, shaky breath, and squeezed her eyes shut. After an agonizing silence, she finally spoke.

"The departed wishes for his son to study hard and get into a good university. That is his dying wish."

The words barely left her mouth before a grieving family member lunged forward and slapped Bella across the face with a loud, vicious crack.

"You lying bitch!"